Murfreesboro, TN - Middle Tennessee State University Interior Architecture professor Kristi Julian is part of a five-country team of college educators who received a prestigious European Union award for a student-focused globally connected digital project.
“The reason I think this is so huge is this is a 27-country European Union project we have been doing for 10 years,” said Julian, whose ProGlobe team members include Regina C. Brautlacht and Anne Fries from Germany, Hao Chen of China, Paula Fonseca and Lurdes Martins from Portugal, and Wendi Hulme from Canada.
The award ceremony took place Sept. 26 during the European Day of Languages at the Goethe Institute in Lisbon, Portugal, where Martins and Fonseca accepted the award on behalf of the team.
The European Language Label is awarded annually by the Erasmus+ National Agencies, operated by the European Union’s executive body, the European Commission. The award is given to the most innovative projects that encourage the development of new techniques and initiatives in the field of language learning and teaching.
A portion of the grant funding goes to pay for curriculum materials and online communication platforms for participating students.
Julian co-founded the global project in 2014 with Brautlacht, who is the commissioner for Global Digital Learning and lecturer in English and Business Communication at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences in Germany. The two met at a conference and formed an alliance that Julian believes was an answer to prayer.
Students from five countries connect digitally to explore how environmental and social challenges impact their lives and careers. Students within varying time zones must coordinate virtual meeting times to examine issues related to the chosen topic for each academic year.
ProGlobe student Cora McDuffee, a junior interior architecture student from Ashland City, served as the main communicator for the entire project at MTSU. The class broke up into smaller groups and McDuffee connected with students in Germany and Canada. Her group’s focus was inclusivity.
Julian hopes to garner enough grant funding to take some of the students to Germany and China. And McDuffee is already making plans to meet some of the fellow project students based there.
“We get a global perspective from every country and learn how we can work together internationally to solve these global issues of sustainability,” Julian said. “It really changes their lives and their perspective of the world.”
